Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-11-09
II. Liars and Living.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

No more unique, distinctive, and st the
same time popular character stands before
the people to-day than Ella Wheeler
Wilcox.
Born in Wisconsin village some thirty
odd years ago, when Wisconsin was not
much more than frontier state, without
influential friends or family, and without
money. enc made for herself name in
literature which commanded attention
before she was eighteen years old. To
one who knows it in detail her history
reads like fairy story. Reared on a
western prairie, she is an ornament to
the most brilliant circles OF the metrop-
oils.
She had never seen an editor or literary
person and knew nothing Of the methods
OF getting into print when, at fourteen,
she read her first production to the press
The New York Mercury published these
childish efforts which were written in
prose and under nom de-plumes.
It declined the first poem she ever sent
for publication, and the editor sarcastic
ally advised her to "crush her ambitions
to be poet"
The Wsverly Magazine has the honor
to be the first to present the name of Ella
Wheeler to the public.
Frank Leslie sent her the first check
she ever received st seventeen years of
age.
From that time to the present day she
has never swerved nor faltered in the
steady, hard climb toward success.
She never sent manuscript in her life
for criticism and never asked for aid or
influence in her literary ventures.
During the last fifteen years Ella
Wheeler has probably been the most crit
icised, abused, praised, misconstrued and
admired woman in the literary world.
Without particle of effort to create a
sensation, everything che has in that
time written has had the effect of stirring
up criticism.
Her writings seem to be possessed of
certain something combustible in their
composition, that on striking outer air
invariably rends it with more or less of
an explosion.
Her first published book was "Drops Of
Water" a collection Of juvenile temper
ance verses. These we're crude but filled
with the dramatic enthusiasm which has so
permested her later work, aud provoked
praise and censure in proportionate guam
titles from the contending forces on the
liquor question.
"Shells," little volume now out OF
print, comes next.
"Msurinne," by many considered her
faest work, and the famous Poems Of
Passion which set the literary world on
FIRE, followed within three years of each
cher.
SColpmns OF abuse and praise Items rid
ieulirg and eulogizing the latter volume
Allied all the papers in the country.
I Some of her friends urged her to sup
press the book alter its first appearance,
but strong in the courage of her conVic-
tions, she read the severe and unjust re-
views through tears, not unmixed with
smiles at sight of the golden coins which
punctuEted the comments Of the critics.
Many of these dollars were spent in
building home for aging parents, and
much of the halo now surrounding this
remarkable woman's life is the reflection
ct the generous deeds of her early monied
life.
Milwaukee people gave her "heneft"
in May, 1883, when she was made the sub
ject of speech by q United States Sena-
tor and was presented with china basket
containing $500 in gold.
Long before her happy marriage in May,
1884, with the elegant and cultivated gen.
tleman who brought her to the east, her
name was household word and she was
a welcome guest in the best circles OF the
great northeast. !
To her rare genius were ADDED unus6a
grace, o. rerson. She WAS brillian
and tactful talker, q good dancer, and I